Live Review

Slam Dunk 2011 (Leeds) – Leeds University

• 2nd Jun 2011

The excitement surging through my body at the prospect of this years Slam Dunk festival could have only been described as ‘wet-yourself excited’ on Saturday morning. And boy did it live up to it. Pop punk like it was 2006, a bit of ska on the side and some utter pop thrown in to the mix for good measure, it was a day worth the 45 minute epic queue to get in.

But the first semi disappointment of the day was that With The Punches had been refused entrance to the UK. The upside to this of course though, was that the north’s very own Me Vs Hero took their place. Without wanting to sound patronising, they did a very good job filling their boots.

A brief pop to the toilet led to yet more excitement, as 18 year old me heard the hidden track from Hit The Light’s first album being sung acoustically, I questioned who could be covering it and then when I eventually saw what was going on and put 3 and 7 together to make ten, I realised I had stumbled across a very intimate, Hit the Lights acoustic show. BONUS. It was beautiful, and I think sets like that really show that a band has talent, as their songs sound fantastic live, full band, full power but so intense stripped down to the bare acoustic minimum.

Running upstairs to gloat at my friends about what I’d seen I realised that it’d missed the first half of pop legends Hellogoodbye’s set, yet when I got there (even having heard and loving the new album) it was more like a misplaced indie band that the good old Shimmy Shimmy Quarter Turn boys, but I don’t know, maybe they’ve grown up and are trying to move away from that. It was still good, well we enjoyed it, it seemed the crowd that were gearing up for Anti Flag after were not as impressed, with yells of ‘Play your only good song’. That man got what he asked when they finished with Radio 1 favourite ‘Here In Your Arms’.

Next stop, the Chapel. At least I don’t recognise Leeds union sober and dressed up for a festival, so I was presuming it was this as we weren’t allowed to take in alcoholic drinks. Channel 4 stars Failsafe (that was a reference to their cameo on The Inbetweeners) did wow the crowd and get them going, but it did seem a little half hearted. Maybe it is the loss of the great ska aspects of their songs that loses the life of they’re new stuff?!

With some persuasion we stuck around for This Time Next Year, who were brilliant. A bit Set Your Goals, a bit New Found Glory, yet needed slightly more polishing, they were actually great, catchy riffs and choruses (I felt I knew the songs well after the first chorus) but there was a major flaw. The singer, great guy, not judging, but I was transfixed to him. It took me ages to work out why, it wasn’t his looks (no offence) nor his bizarre pogoing and throw downs, nor his constant thrusting of his genital area (though that was hard to miss with the stage at the height it was). I finally realised it was his eyebrows, I have never seen such expressive eyebrows!! They were incredible, weird but amazing!

Next, a packed out main stage, sorry – Jagermeister stage, complete with Jager girls handing out badges if you had 10 Jagermeisters…. I felt obliged!! Goldfinger. Now I saw them recently in Belgium, but this blew that set out the water. It was amazing! And I don’t say that lightly, surprise of the day I think! A set full of everything you want to hear from a Goldfinger set – Spokesman, Wasting Time, Superman and an epic final song of 99 Red Balloons (German verse included). And the crowd participation this time was Harry Potter related. Even if you weren’t a HP fan it was amusing, front man John supposedly got called Draco Malfoy in the street, and instead of splitting the crowd up for Goldfinger chants, he got them singing ‘Gryffindor’ and ‘Slytherin’ to the tune. Superb! With guest instrument players from Reel Big Fish and Less Than Jake, and the drummer from Rancid it was a jam packed set that made everyone giggle!

Not wanting to lose our great space for the most anticipated band of the day, ignoring the urges for the toilet we stood our ground to wait for Kenny and co to take their place on stage for The Starting Line’s reformation show. Now it started amazingly, ‘Up and Go’ and ‘Inspired by the $’ but after that, although an awesome set, for those that have the albums after the first, the atmosphere seemed a bit damp, dull, almost bored, as if the crowd were waiting for something that little bit more memorable for their first show together in 4 years. It was getting close to the end of their set and they bashed out ‘Luck’, a song that no one really knows and we all thought it was over. Having said that as soon as the opening chords of ‘Leaving’ started up the atmosphere immediately picked up, climaxing with ‘Bedroom Talk’ which, according to Kenny ‘only works if the crowd sing along’. Now crowd singalongs give me goosebumps anyway, but this was epic, it finished with them all stopping playing, turning the mics to the audience who finished the song, and TSL walking off stage. Epic, but not enough of it!

Nothing went hazy from this point on, we just all got a bit slower at getting from one place to another, which could have been massively to do with a hugely important football final on at this time, which was luckily being shown downstairs, and unfortunately was not the result my cohort needed for partying. That aside, Hit the Lights back in the chapel was amazing. Couldn’t fault their set one bit, it was fun, sexy and shows that without Colin they are still a great band, playing all their first hits, with the big songs from the later album they finished with ‘Bodybag’, which as per normal bought the roof down!

Then we ran, or more like attempted to run but got stopped by queues and bouncers along the way to our headliner of choice 3oh!3. Now I’m not entirely sure why we chose them, as I grew up on Reel Big Fish, but we did, and it was great. Pure pop from two idiots and their band, pleasing an audience full of girls (and my boyfriend) and revelling in the hand sign that when you figure it out reads 3 o 3. Clever. All the hits minus the big stars that made them who and where they are (I’m talking Katy Perry and Ke$ha) but exciting all the same, and to be honest I’m glad we saw them!

Slam Dunk, as per normal was the highlight of my festival year so far.